Government Makes It Legal For ISPs To Sell Your Browsing History – What Can You Do About It?

Hello Netizens! Do you know what ISP stands for? Well, if you must know after March 23, it has been changed from “Internet Service Provider” to “Information Sold for Profit” and “Invading Subscribers Privacy”. Yeah, that’s true. If you are a Verizon, AT&T, or Comcast subscriber, you should be worried – really worried about your online privacy.

ISPs get the green light from the senate to sell users’ web history to advertisers, companies and third parties without taking any prior consent from users. Now the question is:

Should You Be Worried?

Hell Yes! Just imagine, your web history includes personal information like your health and financial information, information about your children, information about your spouses, your recent searches, your search pattern, etc. In simple words, your home broadband knows everything about you, when you wake-up, when you read the newspaper, when you connect to the internet and when you log off. It also keeps a record of your health, how you react to illness, in fact, it knows more about you than you are willing to share with your doctor. Home broadband can build a profile on you about your listening and viewing habits.

On the other hand, your mobile broadband knows how you move through your geo-location and internet activities. So, isn’t it scary enough to make you scream? If not, then Picture this:

Mr. X browsing history is next to be auctioned, we start with $20, and do we hear $21….. And, that Mr. X can be YOU!!!

As Mr. Nelson – A Privacy Activist said:

“This is a gold mine of data—the Holy Grail so to speak, it is no wonder that broadband providers want to be able to sell this information to the highest bidder without consumers’ knowledge or consent. And they want to collect and use this information without providing transparency or being held accountable.”

How to Protect Your Web History? Get A VPN!!!

Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Senior Staff Technologist Jeremy Gillula suggested to use encryption to protect your web history. Who can possibly provide you unbreakable encryption, any guesses? Well, no surprises here, it’s a VPN. Only a VPN can provide you army-grade encryption because it requires the right selection of supported protocol, authentication method and strong data encryption i.e. OpenVPN with AES 256 encryption and keys with 8196bit strength.

A VPN not only offers army-grade encryption, but it also routes your internet traffic via a secure tunnel that makes it impossible for intruders to spy on your online activities including your ISP. So, when your ISP cannot see what you are doing, they have nothing to sell. How does that sound to you? Victory, Right?

But here’s a catch, Electronic Frontier Foundation activists argued that a VPN with minimum or strong log policy is no different than an ISP. If ISP sells your web history, a VPN that keeps log can also do the same. True, isn’t it? How about a VPN with 0% log policy? Haven’t heard of any? Well, let me introduce you to hide.me VPN.

At hide.me VPN, we keep no logs at all. Our Malaysian presence is a proof of that statement. In Malaysia there are no data retention laws of any kind. We do not know your original IP, we do not know what you browse or stream when connected to hide.me VPN. We know nothing about you, and that makes us superior among other VPN providers.

What are the Other Ways to Protect Web History? (Kind of)

To get online encryption, you have two options:

Tor Browser

HTTPS

Tor comes with vulnerabilities. Generally speaking, with Tor no one can trace the route of traffic back to the original IP. But Tor can be easily manipulated by hacking the exit node. You can read more about Tor and VPN in our Tor vs. VPN article.

Finally, there is “Hyper Text Transfer Protocol with Secure Socket Layer (SSL)” (HTTPS), which, if present in your URL bar indicates that your connection to a particular website is encrypted. Your ISP can’t see what you do on an HTTPS-enabled website.

“Those are the three ways you can encrypt [your browsing] so that the ISP can’t see it. Your ISP can see that you’re using a VPN or Tor, but that’s all they’ll see.”

So far, you must have realized that the ongoing fuss about FCC Privacy Rule is no joke, it is something really serious. Why not have a look at the history of the FCC Privacy Rule and how it’s elimination can badly impacts internet users’ privacy.

Back in October 2016, under the Obama administration, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) imposed new privacy rules on ISPs. According to the new rules, ISPs must get opt-in consent from consumers before sharing Web browsing history and personal information with advertisers and other third parties. The rules applied both to home ISPs like Comcast and mobile data carriers like Verizon Wireless. However, the new rules were not applied on Pay-for-Privacy schemes that give customers less privacy unless they pay more like AT&T’s Preference Targeted ad program which they ended recently.

The new rules wouldn’t have taken place till December 4, 2017. The new rules also force ISPs to share details about what information they collect from their users, how long are they going to keep it and identify the entities who can access this information.

So, What Happens Now?

ISPs lobbied against the new privacy rules, and republican commissioner Ajit Pai and Michael O’Riley joined the team and favored ISPs’ consent. After Trump got elected, the house is now controlled by the Republicans. The rules were approved by Democratic Leadership then, but the new Republican majority opposed the decision. The Senate used its power on March 23, under the Congressional Review Act to ensure that FCC rulemaking shall have no power or effect and will not issue similar regulations in future.

If the House and Trump both agree with the Senate decision, then ISPs won’t have to take customer’s’ approval before selling their online histories to advertisers and other third parties.

The Democrat Leader Markey said:

“The Senate Action would allow Comcast, Verizon, Charter, AT&T, and other broadband providers take control away from consumers and relentlessly collect and sell their sensitive information without the consent of that family.”

Advocacy groups, including Free Press, Demand Progress, and the ACLU went to Congress to deliver nearly 90,000 petitions to “Save Broadband Privacy” on March 24.

The decision has already been made. Just one formality is left and that is signature of President Trump. So, it is your call now, would you like to be a selling commodity or would you like to preserve the right of privacy?